


Only Human (After All)

by Raehimura



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Addiction Metaphors, Angst with a Happy Ending, BAMF Hermann Gottlieb, Background Jake/Nate, First Time, Found Family, Getting Together, Gratuitous Use of Math Analogies, M/M, Medical, Mental Health Issues, Mind Control, Newton Geiszler Recovery Arc, Pacific Rim Uprising, Post-PRU Recovery, Restraints, Seizures, Self-Harm, Slow Burn, the long road to recovery
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-07-29 08:01:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16260044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raehimura/pseuds/Raehimura
Summary: Hermann resolved to start his own war clock, a series of scarlet red numbers steadily ticking by in the back of his mind, tracking the time until the real Newt came back. Numbers counting down toward inevitable victory with a comforting regularity.He was so good at numbers.The war is not over.Micro-rifts are opening all over the world, legends from the old war have returned from the dead, and Marshalls Pentecost and Lambert are preparing an offensive strike.And Dr. Hermann Gottlieb, the number one remaining expert on kaiju and the breach, hasn't left the brig in weeks.





	1. Hypoxia

“Hello, Newton. How are you feeling today?”

Newt, too skinny, practically drowning in starched white scrubs.

“Oh, you know, alive. Can’t complain. I’m a happy little lab rat.”

Hermann, sitting across from him, leaning tiredly on his cane propped against the white tile.

“Food could be better though,” Newt continues in that lilting tone of his. “You ever notice how every Shatterdome’s food is worse than the last? They’ll have us eating kaiju bone broth before long.”

Ah, so today was a talkative day. Hermann almost smiles.

“I seem to remember you living off caffeine and increasingly dubious snack foods when we worked together.”

“I’ve had time to refine my palette.”

He says it with a wolfish grin, leaning back, a parody of Newt.

“Yes, I suppose you have.”

Hermann does not frown.

“So what’s new? I never get the good gossip anymore, Herms. Anything eat at you, maybe?”

Hermann schools his features blank, stifling the urge to flinch, but when he speaks again his tone is as rigidly pleasant as ever.

Newton smirks, not listening, and shifts against his restraints.

 

 


	2. The War Clock

It had taken three weeks for the first sign of the real Newt to show through. Three weeks that Hermann spent pleading, dealing, and screaming in turns to convince the powers that be not to give up on him, and even then, with limited success.

Their's was a nasty truce, taken day by day and providing little comfort other than what seemed to be the daily rescheduling of a wartime execution. Which, of course, was no comfort at all.

It was lucky that the jaeger program was continuing, and therefore Newt remained in PPDC custody and they got to decide what to do with him — subject to the Council’s approval, of course. Anyone, everyone else would likely have given up on him immediately.

As it was, they kept him locked up in an isolated and quarantined cell in the basement of the Moyulan Shatterdome. Technically, Newt was both criminal and patient, but the only treatment they’d been able to offer so far had been to keep him partially sedated the bulk of the time.

Other than a rotating parade of discomfited nurses and doctors, Hermann was his only visitor. The rest of the base seemed only to be holding their breath as they waited for someone else, someone higher up the chain of command, to decide Newton’s fate.

Even Pentecost’s son —  _call me Jake_  — who had assured Hermann that he was on his side in this, simply had no idea what to  _do_  with him now.

So Hermann did the only thing he could, in between heated meetings on his friend’s behalf: He showed up. He kept showing up, speaking to Newt with a careful pleasantness, assuring himself  that he was physically safe, at least, and watching closely for the faintest sign that the real Newt was breaking through. A sign he had absolute faith would be forthcoming.

Three weeks in, he was the only one so convinced. The Council was losing patience.

Newt, for his part, seemed vaguely bored by the whole experience. Bored and calm and almost,  _almost_  himself. Until the Precursors saw an opportunity to lash out, to taunt them with their control and their power, or merely to drive the knife in further that this was not the man Hermann cared for. Might never be again.

Hermann never took the bait. He showed nothing but assurance and mild concern to Newt, nothing but confidence and fury to skeptical authorities, and nothing but respect and inquiry to baffled medical staff.

He did not cry, or scream, or throw things — not until the door to his quarters closed behind him at night.

It was unsustainable. He knew this. But he could not fathom doing anything else, being anywhere else except outside Newton’s cell every morning. Not while there was still a chance.

They could take that chance from him when the anteverse froze over. He’d faced down hell and the end of the world and had not blinked. Personally, Hermann didn’t like their odds.

Which is how Hermann found himself nursing a watery earl gray tea across from a still-bound Newt on the wrong end of a sleepless night after a week of sleepless nights, blinking wearily and resolutely not sighing. He was searching his mind for a safe topic, one that might help them connect, when he noticed Newt watching his cup as it moved mechanically from the table to his mouth and back.

“Would you like some?”

“Of that weak leaf water you drink? Thanks, but I’m good.”

They would do that sometimes, throw in a joke or a ridiculous phrase that was so Newt that it hurt. Hermann didn’t flinch, just smiled amicably and took another sip.

But Newton’s eyes continued to follow his movements closely. Finally, Newton stilled and narrowed his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was soft, almost hoarse, and a little wondering. “That mug … I think it’s mine.”

Hermann didn’t need to look down at the ceramic cradled in his hands to know Newt was right. It was a cheap white mug covered in sharpie drawings of Godzilla and random internet phrases in Newton’s chaotic scrawl. Hermann had first seen it in a text messaged selfie from the early days of their correspondence, and it had made the journey with Newt to every Shatterdome they worked in after.

Newt drank his coffee from it every morning for all those years. When he’d left for Shao Industries, the mug remained hanging from its hook in their lab. Hermann brought it to his quarters that first night and hadn’t let it out of his sight since.

It was not an accident that he brought this mug with him today, and every day before. But had it actually managed to spark something in Newt? Hermann’s heart throbbed against his ribs as he carefully set the mug on the table between them, like a holy relic from another age. Which, he supposed, it was.

“So it is. You can have it back now, if you like.”

It was a silly thing to say. Newton wasn’t allowed any personal belongings, much less ones that could be turned into sharp objects.

But perhaps it was the right thing to say anyway. Newt stared down at the mug with a frozen expression, a tremor starting in his restrained left hand. Then, without warning, he let loose a body-wracking sob and wrenched his head up to face Hermann.

And finally,  _finally_ , a bittersweet victory: Real fear in Newton Geiszler's mismatched eyes.

“Hermann,” he choked out, more rasp than word.

Hermann’s hand reached out of its own accord, hovering just short of Newt’s. “Newton. Newt.”

But Newt was shaking his head, jerking and unnatural, as he gasped for breath and words.

“I, I …”

A vein twitched beneath the sallow, shining skin of his temple, his gnarled fingers extending stiffly, painfully, beneath the cuffs to shake in the air. His pupils shrank.

“I—”

“Newt?”

As Hermann watched, terror and hope in his throat, a slow trail of blood wound its way down from Newton's nose.

And then he was jerking violently against his restraints, and before Hermann could react, a flood of medical personnel in muted red scrubs descended and ushered him out of the room.

He stood just beyond the observation mirror, breathing and leaning heavily on his cane as he stared unseeing at the mob of nurses obscuring his view. When he turned to look at a noise behind him, he found himself face to face with the Marshalls Pentecost and Lambert. A host of I-told-you-so’s crowded at the tip of his tongue, but that wasn’t fair to either of them, or to Newt, so he settled on:

“He is still in there. And we will free him.”

Both men could only watch him go, staring without a word to offer in reply. Hermann only started shaking when the brig’s door closed behind him.

* * *

As signs go, it wasn’t much, but it was enough to convince the PPDC and the Council to invest some resources into Newton’s recovery.

No more talk of simply dropping him in a dark hole and throwing away the key, at least for now. They brought in neurologists, psychologists, trauma specialists — even a stern-faced hostage negotiator that Hermann hated on sight.

A parade of specialists went into Newt’s cell, and none of them came out with concrete information. But whether from their efforts or Newt’s own, he was showing improvement. Slowly.

So Hermann resolved to start his own war clock, a series of scarlet red numbers steadily ticking by in the back of his mind, tracking the time until the real Newt came back. Numbers counting down toward inevitable victory with a comforting regularity.

He was so good at numbers.

That first hint of the real Newt marked the starting point: all zeroes, all potential. And as specialist after specialist came to poke and prod at Newt, Hermann let the numbers run. In quiet moments, he counted along with them, steady as a metronome, familiar as a mantra.

Perhaps he was out of practice with prayer, but he knew numbers.

Hermann’s mental clock reached 02 days 10 hours 42 minutes before the Precursor’s control slipped again, just for a moment. After that, with some stopping and starting, the time between each breakthrough shrank — slowly, so damnably slowly, but with a perfect kind of symmetry just begging to be graphed.

(Perhaps he would have, had he not been affixed stubbornly to Newt’s side every moment the Marshalls would allow, and pencils weren't allowed in the same room.)

**04:08:23**

Hermann had bullied his way into staying in the observation room overnight, too encouraged by the second glimmer of progress to possibly sleep. He was rewarded for his obstinacy by Newt slipping out of a fitful sleep, the jarring clatter of his restraints finally settling, to smile up at him, easy, and dreamily murmur, “Hermann.”

Hermann sat by his bed while he slept on, back and leg aching, and he couldn’t wipe the smile off his face for hours.

**06:14:17**

The waiting was as unbearable as ever, and when the next breakthrough came, Hermann almost wished it hadn’t.

It came after an hour’s rant from the Precursors about the inferiority of their species, Newt’s throat raw and abused and still screaming. The words blurred out to a broken sound as he fought them back, thrashing and gasping and bruising his wrists against the restraints. Hermann hovered, utterly helpless, for the long moments of struggle before Newt stilled.

Tears in his eyes and no words left in him, but it was indeed Newt, for the briefest moment. Then, eye glazing over, he slid back into the catatonic stupor the Precursors kept him in between unhinged ranting.

The next week followed that same pattern, good days and bad. Sometimes Newt’s coherence would surprise Hermann, and Newt himself, coming to the surface organically and with barely a tremor. Other times, Newt clawed his way out with a horrible struggle that drew the maligned attention of the medical staff and left him medicated and sedated for hours.

Once, at 08:19:05, Newt laughed. Just one spontaneous bark, after Hermann snipped at a careless orderly. The sound echoed loud and eerie in the enclosed space, and Newt lapsed back into dead-eyed silence after, but Hermann counted it as a victory anyway.

Then, almost exactly two weeks after Newt’s rescue mission began in earnest (again, that beautiful, fearful symmetry), the doctors offered another glimmer of hope: A treatment.

**14:06:38**

The head of medical, Dr. Sutter, presented the research and the treatment proposal to a secure and mostly empty conference room.

Technically, she was presenting the research to those with the proper security clearance, which at the time included only the two Marshalls co-leading the Shatterdome. But Hermann considered himself Need To Know on anything involving Newton Geiszler, and the assembled authorities didn’t seem eager to argue the point.

Neurology was only tangential to his fields of study, and even with Newt’s blue-tinted biology knowledge taking up residence in his head, Hermann couldn’t completely understand the technical and highly theoretical research the medical team had gathered in a briefing memo the size of a textbook.

But he was a smart man — a genius, he was reminded by a voice that sounded suspiciously like Newt — and more than capable of grasping the layman’s version being presented to the Marshalls.

The medical team wanted to try a form of sound wave synaptic therapy to disrupt the electrical patterns in Newt’s brain that kept him entangled with the Precursors. Basically, an anti-Drift to cancel out the unnatural synchronicities between his brain and the hivemind.

“It’s non-invasive,” Dr. Sutter was quick to assure them. “But still highly experimental, of course. We have no precedent to go on here. Based on what we’ve learned from the last three decades of Drift research, and what we’ve observed of Dr. Geiszler’s neurological patterns, we believe this has a chance of improving his condition.”

Hermann had no reason to doubt the doctors and their research, and certainly no better data of his own to act on. But he still spent an hour scrupulously grilling Sutter about potential side effects.

If they're right, headaches and pain. If they're wrong, seizures. Neurological damage.

If they’re very wrong: Coma.

Death.

The same risks Newt faced in his current state. At least this way, he had a chance at freedom.

When Dr. Sutter had answered all their questions, a heavy quiet fell. Hermann watched the Marshalls exchange one of their inscrutable looks and then, with a touch of surprise, found Jake looking to him for input.

He took a deep breath, acutely aware of the weight of Newt’s life on his shoulders, before nodding sharply.

“It is dangerous, but it’s the best plan we have. We have to try.”

Jake was already nodding before he finished speaking, and when he clapped once and stood, it was with a sudden rush of infectious, decisive energy.

“You heard the man. Let’s give it a go.”

Hermann smiled grimly and nodded to his colleagues as they returned to their work and did not let his breath or his knees shake until the door had closed behind them.

Then there was nothing to do but to return to his quarters and become fluent in a new scientific field. To learn everything he could about their proposal, the theories behind it and the technology involved. Which, it turned out, was quite a lot. He was a genius after all.

It had a kind of symbolism to it, the kind Hermann had long since stopped denying he appreciated. This technology was the perfect combination of both he and Newt's fields – biology screaming in lambda.

For all this time, since that first ill-fated meeting so many years ago, it had felt as though Newt spoke to him in smoke signals, in microphone feedback, in screaming colors, and Hermann could only answer him in code as complex as that which brought the jaegers to life. But now, now there were brainwaves to measure and confront with mathematically opposing wavelengths – a graph he could follow even with his eyes closed – and for the first time in all of this he felt a kind of hopefulness, because he could understand. Finally, Newt was speaking to him in numbers.

Finally, they had a plan. Finally, they were  _doing_  something. Something more than standing in that claustrophobic cell and watching over a stranger wearing Newt’s body, talking in circles with those creatures in his head. Something more than grieving a man he hadn’t yet lost.

Hermann had missed ten years' worth of chances to help Newt. He wouldn’t miss another.


	3. Working Hypothesis

**16:11:00**

The first treatment was … not the success they had hoped.

Frankly, it was the most terrifying thing to happen to Hermann since the Precursors had used Newt’s body to try to kill him. And this time, he hadn’t even been in the room.

Dr. Sutter, along with the usual cadre of doctors and nurses and technicians, spent the morning filling Newt’s small cell with monitoring equipment and getting every kind of baseline reading they could think of. The blinking and beeping of the machines was mind-numbing and cacophonous as Hermann waited anxiously beyond the glass for the treatment to begin.

But all of it faded away the moment they wheeled in the strange device that would hopefully bring Newt back. It was tall and slim, with a complicated computer interface and a padded headset that glowed faintly blue.

The similarity to the PONS did not escape Hermann’s notice.

Newt watched all the setup with vague disinterest. Until Dr. Sutter fit the headset snugly over his forehead and ears, and he let out a low, smug laugh.

“You honestly think your primitive technology can do what entire planets have failed to do?” the Precursors taunted in Newt’s voice, inhumanely flat, layered with a distant rumble like feedback, or the shifting of tectonic plates under a black ocean.

The doctors carried on with their tasks as if they hadn’t heard, and Hermann allowed himself only the tightening of his hand on his cane in response to his own surge of anxiety. But Newt’s blank eyes found his unerringly even through the thick glass walls, and Hermann felt exposed, once again struck by the impossible conviction that the Precursors could see into his mind as clearly as they could see into Newt.

Soon, the equipment was ready, the pre-tests had been completed, and there was nothing left to do but: BEGIN.

Everyone but the essential medical team cleared the room and gathered in the observation room, crowded around the glass walls of Newt’s cell.

Dr. Sutter turned to face them, stating clearly for the video record, “Test Session 1 of the synaptic sound wave therapy for patient Dr. Newton Geiszler. Baseline tests are consistent with all previous data. Starting treatment at 30% of maximum intensity for twenty minutes.”

She pressed a series of commands into the interface, then jabbed a button at the top of the device with a confident flourish. “Treatment initiated.”

For a long moment, nothing changed. The room was silent save for the gentle hum emanating from the headset. Newt’s eyes were closed, and by all indications, he may have been asleep.

Until his blank face was split by a frown, body twisting fruitlessly in the familiar restraints. His eyes stayed closed, but his mouth parted and widened in a silent scream that slowly gained sound, growing from a hoarse groan to a wrenching scream, until it was tearing out of him and drowning out the sound of doctors and nurses sent scrambling.

The sound was horrible, grotesque on an instinctive level, and Hermann immediately stood and pressed a panicked hand to the glass. When Newt’s screaming continued and no one seemed to be moving to turn off the machine, Hermann rounded on the Marshalls, but Jake was already leaning over the intercom.

“Dr. Sutter?”

“One moment,” she shouted over the rising pitch of Newt’s screaming, her fingers flying over the device’s interface but still not reaching to turn it off.

Newt’s raw voice began to shake along with his body, and it was clear another seizure was imminent. Hermann leaned over Marshall Pentecost and jabbed the intercom himself.

“Dr. Sutter! End this now.”

With a final string of commands to the interface, she slammed the button and the humming cut out, along with the remains of Newt’s screaming.

The silence was sudden and eerie, but soon interrupted by the clang of his body jerking wildly against the restraints, and god Hermann really wished he didn’t instantly recognize the sight of Newton Geiszler seizing.

Hermann looked away from the ensuing flurry of intervention, collapsing into a cold metal chair and determinedly not looking at the Marshalls. He sat and stared and counted the grooves in the industrial flooring until the metronomic, erratic clanging in the cell died down and Sutter slipped into the observation room.

Hermann was on his feet with a snarl, growling before he even realized it.

“Dr. Sutter, what the  _hell_  happened?”

Sutter, to her credit, did not flinch. “We don’t know exactly what went wrong, but we will. We’re running some more diagnostics, but it looks like there's no evidence of damage. We’ll keep him sedated for the next 24 hours to give his brain time to rest and heal, and we will fine-tune our methods before we try it again.”

Hermann tried to remember that they were all on the same side, with the way they were talking about Newt like he was just another piece in their dataset. If his voice came out a touch menacing, he really couldn’t help it.

“See that you do, doctor.”

Newt spent the next 24 hours asleep. The entire medical team spent the next 24 hours pouring over data and tweaking the equipment in between their normal duties. Hermann spent the next 24 hours trying very hard not to take his cane to the blasted interface, reminding himself sternly that science was rarely neat or straightforward, and some fantastic and terrifying failures were to be expected. Traditional, even.

He steeled himself for the unexpected, and worse, the expected.

**17:12:00**

The next day, it was time to try it again, and Hermann found himself back in front of the observation window with an even bigger knot in his chest. His fingers flexed against the handle of his cane, and for some reason he couldn’t stop thinking about the way Newton had smiled when he had surprised him with a cupcake on his birthday during the last year of the war.

(It wasn't as if the Shatterdome had an in-house bakery, of course, and butter itself was practically contraband at the time, but even then it was a singularly raggedy thing. The previously perfect whorl of icing had been smeared by its hurried transit down to the labs in a napkin, courtesy of his own unsteady gait and discomfort with the entire idea, but the icing was green and sugary and lit up Newt's face when he saw it.

Oddly, all of it fit. Especially that smile. Even the green icing on his sleeve, and Newt's laugh when he offered to lick it off, wagging his brows all the while, and Hermann pulled the most disgusted face he could manage and shooed him off and pretended like he wasn't at all interested in his birthday, or whether or not he enjoyed it.

But Newt scarfed it down and their eyes met over the flimsy wrapping, empty and sprawled on his desk on the crumby napkin, and there was a feeling that maybe, just maybe, the war would be worth it.)

Then, the button was pressed, the machine hummed steadily, and the treatment was underway. Hermann held his breath, sure that every passing minute would be the one to make Newt start screaming again. Or worse. But Newt lay calmly under his restraints until the treatment was done, and the doctors were all smiles at his test results after.

The next few daily treatments went similarly, better in that Newt barely reacted to them or even acknowledge anything was happening around him. It wasn’t much to go on, but each time the doctors declared that their scans showed some progress, and they simply needed to continue the treatment, so Hermann swallowed his impatience and remembered the cupcake.

**20:07:13**

Then came the first sign of success: The morning after his fourth treatment, Newt blinked his eyes open at Hermann and was himself.

He croaked a soft hello and stared up at Hermann with wide eyes, red-rimmed but blessedly familiar.

“Newton,” Hermann breathed, feeling everything at once and utterly unsure of what to do.

Newton opened his mouth again, seemed to be struggling to speak, but couldn’t get words out. So Hermann hushed hum, pressing a hand to his arm and settling into the chair beside his bed. Newt drifted in and out of focus, but Hermann stayed with him, reassuring him in a soft voice that he was going to be okay. That he wasn’t alone. That it wasn’t his fault.

All in all, it lasted an hour, and the surge of hope at Newt’s progress helped soothe the ache of watching the glassy unconsciousness creep back into his eyes, cold kaiju blue blooming over freezing waters. Heavy, but not final.

After that it’s a blur of days and hours, with Hermann barely leaving the brig and losing all sense of night and day, all sense of time passing, save for the numbers of the war clock steadily climbing in a distant corner of his mind.

Newt came through for at least an hour or two every day. On good days, it was him the whole time he managed to stay awake. On bad days, Newt wasn't there at all.

The Precursors used their control when they had it, keeping Newt awake but unresponsive, catatonic. Or, on the worst days, using Newt’s voice to taunt Hermann about the futility of his efforts to save Newt and their plan to destroy mankind.

But no matter what kind of day it was, Hermann spent as much time with Newt as he could — as much as the Marshalls would allow. Whether Newt sat up and struggled through attempts to speak, laid glassy-eyed under his restraints, or sneered and spit threats, Hermann would damn well be sure he sat beside him and offered what calm reassurance he could. It was all he could do — a duty yes, but not a burden. But as the hours rolled on, the effort of sitting, of waiting, of counting and  _enduring_ , took its toll.

It was 23:22:00 when Hermann lost his patience. The treatments had plateaued and watching Newt flicker into and out of existence right next to him had worn him down to the bone. It was time to confront the Marshalls with the obvious.

Hermann must Drift with Newt.


	4. Euphoria

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tiny chapter to whet the appetite. Next big, very plotty chapter soon (hopefully before the new year). Thanks for reading!

**8 Hours After the Battle of Mt. Fuji**

The first thing Newt remembers after trying (and apparently failing) to end the world is Hermann Gottlieb yelling.

He still wasn’t in control of his body, hadn’t been for days even before he’d been knocked unconscious, but as his body woke up, the Precursors’ control loosened just enough for him to break the surface of his thoughts and access his senses.

His body was restrained in a chair, surrounded by dim lights and strange glass walls. At first, Newt felt nothing but dizzy and sick, until a quick probe at his own mind showed him everything he needed to know: Their plan had failed, earth was safe, and Newt was in PPDC custody.

For some reason the Precursors couldn’t understand, he was still alive — a fact they had made ample use of while Newt slept, to taunt and sneer at those again responsible for stealing their victory. Maybe Newt should have flinched away from the memories of what they’d said to everyone who’d stepped foot in his cell, but he couldn’t spare much thought for anything beyond the simple repeating refrain:

_We lost. They won. They’re safe._

That’s when the sound just outside the door grew louder, and he realized three things in rapid succession: 1) Someone was yelling and it had woken him up, 2) The voice was Hermann’s, and 3) Hermann was  _pissed_.

“Is this how you treat prisoners in your care!?” Hermann screamed, reaching a fever pitch easily discernible through two sets of doors. “What, were you trained at some pre-war black site?”

Through it all, Newt felt a flicker of amusement at that. Some things never changed.

“How dare you,” Hermann continued, sharp as poison. “Do you have ANY idea who this man is?”

A moment passed in muffled silence as whoever was getting dressed down out there must have replied. The quiet was shattered by the sharp clang of something slamming against the outer wall of the brig.

“It doesn’t matter, you absolute imbecile, without Dr. Geiszler none of us would be standing here. You’re lucky I won’t give you the same treatment you gave him! Now get out of my face.”

The security team, Newt realized. They must have roughed him up on his way into custody. Newt hadn’t even realized he was sore — even after hearing that, he was only distantly aware of it, too busy being surprised to be alive.

He took a hazy mental inventory of his injuries. The thrum of bruising on his face. The tacky feel of blood from his nose and lips. The sting from his swollen eyes. His body stiff and sticky with sweat.

He vaguely remembered someone cold clocking him. He figured he got off easy, and he was still not entirely sure how the world hadn’t ended this time. Why was Hermann so upset?

Another voice joined the conversation outside, deep and steady. For a dizzying moment, Newt was sure it was Pentecost, before he was confronted with the vertiginous memory of how much time had passed since the first war. How many they’d lost.

How many more had joined that number while Newt slept?

The new voice was calm and authoritative, but Hermann steamrolled over it with outraged yelling. It was no longer loud enough to hear clearly through the walls, but Newt was sure he heard Hermann address the new voice as “Marshall.” Hermann was yelling like that to a  _Marshall_?

Another beat of silence, and Newt struggled to keep his awareness above the dark waters of unconsciousness churning around him. Then, the door to the brig crashed open, followed by the glass door to his cell, and there was Hermann, face familiar and concerned and far softer than his voice from a moment ago.

“Newton,” he murmured, hoarse, as he swept over to him. “I don’t know if you can hear me, and I know you can’t respond, but I just wanted to say … I’m sorry. I am sorry they hurt you and I am sorry I wasn’t there to stop them. But I promise, I will not let it happen again.”

Hermann reached toward him, and Newt would have flinched if he could, but he laid a gentle hand on Newt’s bruised cheek, and it was the first nice thing he had felt in almost ten years.

“We’re going to bring you back, Newton. I promise.”

Newt heard a quiet echo of Hermann from a lifetime ago, declaring promises are lies, before the darkness pulled him down and he didn’t feel anything else for a long time.

* * *

**22:14:38**

It was a moderate day. A C+, to use Newton’s American terminology.

The nurses told Hermann that since the … incident that morning, Newt had been calm. Not yelling threats or spitting invective or even fighting his restraints. But he also hadn’t said a word, sitting silent and still as the nurses cleaned him up.

That morning, Newt had slammed his own face into a table without hesitation. He managed to do so twice before the orderlies could adequately restrain him.

Hermann had been in yet another science department meeting, so he hadn’t been told until hours later. He wanted to be angry or guilty as he rushed to the brig, but even he had to admit Newt was in no further danger and there was nothing Herman could have done for him. Still, it stung to know that Newt had been hurting while Hermann was going about his work, none the wiser. A far too familiar helplessness.

The sight that greeted him upon arrival was not pretty. Newt’s hair was limp with sweat, his eyelids heavy, the skin around his nose and eyes puffy and red. The beginnings of a purpling bruise stood out sharply where a black eye was forming, and despite their efforts to clean him up, dried blood was still visible under his nose. Even his lips were swollen and dark red where they’d split.

Newt looked like he’d been on the losing end of a bar fight, and Hermann physically shuttered to think of how much unnatural force must have been behind his forced movement.

Newt didn’t react to Hermann’s presence, but he didn’t expect him too, not on a C+ day. Still, seeing him there, like that, Hermann couldn’t help but reach out, even if it would only comfort himself. He brought a careful hand up to cup Newt’s cheek, his thumb barely brushing along the irritated skin.

The effect was instantaneous. A soft, fragile sound escaped Newt’s throat and he blinked heavily, brow furrowed. Hermann reacted without thinking, holding Newt’s face more firmly and reaching out with his free hand to cradle Newt’s slack fingers.

Newt’s eyes fluttered closed with a look of such bliss that Hermann found himself fighting back tears.

“Hermann,” Newt managed, barely audible, and Hermann hushed him quietly. Newt met his gaze and it was him, recognizably him, and Newt didn’t look away even as he leaned heavily into the hand on his cheek.

Herman brushed his thumb over Newt’s cheek again, careful of the worst of the bruising, and squeezed softly at the precious hand cradled in his own. He stayed there, murmuring comforting nonsense for long minutes until Newt slid heavily into sleep.

Maybe it had been a solid B day after all.


End file.
